What's TV Worth? It Depends How You Watch

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"Time Warner Cable is holding your favorite shows hostage," warns
a new website, keepcbs.com, about a feud brewing between the top
TV network and a dwindling cable service.

The two are in a fight over the fee that TWC pays CBS to carry
its programming, which could result in CBS disappearing from Time
Warner Cable next Wednesday (July 24) for about 3 million
subscribers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, reports the Wall
Street Journal.

But anyone missing "NCIS" or "The Big Bang Theory" can simply
watch them on cbs.com for free, possibly using TWC Internet
service. They could also watch CBS and the other networks for
free after buying a good amplified antenna such as the $80 Mohu
Leaf Ultimate.

New Yorkers needing their Mark Harmon or Pauley Perrette fix can
also get it from Brooklyn-based online service Aereo,
which operates a farm of antennas to pick up 32 broadcast
stations and pipe them over the Internet for $8 per month — a lot
less than a Time-Warner cable fee, which begins at $50 per month.

Aereo is also available in Atlanta and Boston, with plans to
expand to 20 other cities. And CBS is one of several networks
suing the company, so far unsuccessfully.

In other words, there is no way anyone who really wants to watch
CBS won't be able to. There's also no agreement about what CBS
should cost. Unlike HBO or ESPN, the major broadcast networks are
meant to be free, and are required by law to be so.

That's if you use an antenna, which has its downsides. Reception
may be spotty and affected by bad weather, and an antenna won't
help you with "cable" channels such as AMC. To solve those
problems, you can pay a cable or satellite TV company, which pays
a fee to the highly demanded networks.

Viewers are slightly less inclined to do that, however. In a
possible hint of " cord
cutting," Time Warner Cable lost 119,000 video subscribers
just in the first three months of 2013. But at the same time, it
gained 131,000 high-speed Internet subscribers.

They may not all be subscribing specifically to get Web video,
but certainly a lot are doing that.
Netflix alone consumes up to 32.3 percent of downstream
landline broadband traffic in North America at peak times,
according to an analysis by network equipment vendor Sandvine.

And that's mostly people watching "TV," if a new report from
research company GfK is accurate. The company surveyed about 500
people (admittedly not a huge sample) who subscribe to at least
one of the following services: Netflix Watch Instantly, Amazon
Prime Instant Video and Hulu Plus.

Unsurprisingly, Hulu subscribers nearly always watch TV shows,
since they are mostly what is offered. But Netflix and Amazon
Prime subscribers spend twice as much time watching TV shows than
movies. Netflix starts at $8 per month, as does Hulu Plus. Amazon
Instant Video (the one of the three that does carry CBS shows) is
included as one of the goodies in an Amazon Prime membership,
which runs $79 per year. [See also:
5 Steps to Cut Cable and Enjoy TV for Half the Price ]

So what's CBS worth? It's an indeterminate amount of a
$50-per-month cable bill, or of essentially free antenna
reception, or of $8-per-month Aereo service or $79-per-year
Amazon Prime or free on CBS.com, that is, after you pay for
Internet service. (TWC's cheapest entry that can handle video
streaming is $35 per month.)

Ultimately, it's worth the smallest amount that people can manage
to pay for it. And no dispute with one cable company will hold it
hostage.